On Friday, July 19, several pro-life leaders demanded
justice and burial for the bodies of[1] 45 babies found in convicted murderer
Kermit Gosnell’s Philadelphia
abortion clinic. They organized a prayer vigil outside the Philadelphia Medical
Examiner’s Office, and promised to risk arrest when the office barred its doors
to their inquiries.

The speakers, including Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for
Life, Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins,
Christian Defense Coalition’s Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Stand True Ministries’
Bryan Kemper, and Alliance Defending Freedom’s Catherine Foster, endured the
sweltering heat to deliver a
letter requesting information about the remains[2]. The Medical Examiner’s
Office, which agreed to meet with them just hours before, locked its doors and
called the police as they approached.

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests
for Life[1], stressed to the MRC that the Medical Examiner’s Office responded
twice when he previously requested the babies’ remains. While the office first considered
his appeal, it later decided to withhold the bodies from all third parties – without
explanation.

“Meanwhile,” said Pavone, “we’re doing two things: we’re
asking ‘Why not?’ and, ‘What do you intend to do with these bodies?’ The public
has the right to know where these bodies are, what’s going to be done with
them.”

Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins excoriated the office, telling
the MRC, “We’re here as citizens asking the city to let us bury these babies in
the proper way.” She believed the Medical Examiner’s conduct aimed to
dehumanize the babies and reprimanded, “This is the city of Philadelphia wanting to forget the ugly
horrors of the Kermit Gosnell trial.”

Even now, according to Hawkins, the city is turning a blind
eye to justice for the sake of obfuscating abortion’s horrors: “Because if they
– they’re acknowledging that babies who were killed during an abortion were
human beings, were persons, with rights. And that goes to the very heart of the
abortion issue.”

Article continues after the video.

Pavone described the office’s conduct as predictable and
explained, “The problem that we're facing here this morning is indicative of
what happens when a government allows the killing of these children in the
first place.”

The office had hinted that it had plans for the dead babies,
but refused to reveal them. The speakers repeatedly cited the
Medical Examiner's Office[3] written policy, which says, “Anyone, including
friends and neighbors, may claim a body three days after the date of
pronouncement of death.”

Philadelphia Department of Public
Health spokesman Jeff Moran announced
in July[4] to a local NBC affiliate that, “the remains have not
yet been cremated” and “no time frame has been established” to determine the
destination of the remains. For the three babies murdered at the hands of
Gosnell, Moran clarified that their families will decide upon their future.

According
to the grand jury assigned the Gosnell case,[5] the Philadelphia medical examiner first received
the remains of the 45 children after a February 2010 raid of Gosnell’s Women’s
Medical Society, and “confirmed that at least two of them, and probably three,
had been viable.”

Gosnell was convicted
in May[6] of first-degree murder for the deaths of three babies born alive and
involuntary manslaughter of a female patient. Earlier this month, he pled
guilty to dealing[7] almost a million pills of hazardous narcotics.

That pattern continued last week. Besides MRC, only Fox News
attended the vigil as media. Fr. Pavone noticed the absence of media, but
suggested the public influence the media, rather than vice versa, “The more the
public becomes aware and begins rallying around a cause, at a certain point in
order to present themselves as journalists with any integrity they have to pay
attention to certain things.”

Hawkins wasn’t surprised by the lack of media at the vigil.
The media“want to forget the entire Gosnell case because they know how it’s
really shaped the dialogue about abortion in our country,” she said.

The attempt to get answers from the Medial Examiner’s office
failed. The Christian Defense Coalition’s Rev. Patrick Mahoney verbalized
frustration with the city. “Now we know how Kermit Gosnell could exist in Philadelphia,” he said.
“They refuse to speak to us, they will not talk to us; they will not even take a
letter[2].”

But Mahoney and the others aren’t done. He said pro-life
leaders now plan “a national call to come to Philadelphia.” “We’re inviting people
of good will[10], people of compassion, people who care for the human rights to
peacefully intervene,” he implored, “and if we have to have these people
prayerfully kneeling in front of this Medical Examiner’s office, peacefully
risking arrest, this invokes civil rights imagery.”

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office did not
respond to inquiry.

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